Under the Blur of Street Lights

[Zan Yu]

"Calling it a night if this nonsense keeps up," Zan Yu mumbled to herself. Patience falling away.

The dead leaf colored cigarillo slipped between her puckered lips once more and remained for a long, methodical drag. A lazy exhalation added itself to the loitering cloud of smoke hanging about the little dance hall like a fog. Taking up at least three sides of the small building were mismatched tables with mismatched chairs. The fourth side touted pool tables and equipment in better condition than the tables and chairs. While the center was occupied by a broken and nailed down dance floor.

Tonight she deemed a hunting night, in one form or another. Victim or competition, just so long as they could give her a thrill. She was sure she could find it here upon seeing more than one speedy looking ride parked in the lot outside. She hung far back from the center, to a table cuddling a corner and imaged herself appearing like a wolverine-tiger in the underbrush. Boots atop the table, rocking in a chair that really was a rocking chair, Zan Yu visually stalked the crowd in full Equalist attire. She wore the barest semblance of disguise to cover the uniform. Save for the mask and a raven black wig, bobbed styled that barely came past her ears, she employed a very beaten and fabric patch ridden leather jacket probably belonging to a man more than half her size, that might have once been some shade of green, as an overcoat.

Predatory as she was feeling. A distant observer. A part of Zan Yu was becoming increasingly jealous at how sociable these people were with one another. Social drinkers and chatty smokers were shoulder to shoulder at the tables. Prey fish and tiger-sharks frenzied at the pool tables with the scent of money in the water. Cheapskate men danced with even cheaper looking women and tried to hold themselves up as they swayed like metronomes to the music. Everyone's body, no matter what they were doing, seemed to move in time to the melancholy rag of some Water Tribeswoman, a foreigner, singing on the nickelodeon jukebox.

A tribesman, a sailor, proclaimed his love for her louder than the harshest snow storm. And she in turn, loved him more absolutely than the cold of a winter night embracing your bones. Whenever he shipped off to Republic City his letters told of how he longed for her. But whenever he was with her, all he could speak of was Republic City. In time, she saw less and less of him. Received less and less of his letters. Soon a year past passed with neither sight nor word from him. And no one would tell her what became of him, whether he was lost at sea or to Republic City. Coping with his absence, she decided to believe she had merely imagined him all this time. Yet, she continued to await his return.

Admittedly, the he emotions and sentimentality of it just sped past Zan Yu. Maybe it was how little importance she found romance to be in her younger days. Or maybe how she spent so much of her young-adulthood locked away. Either way, she couldn't relate to the singer's story.

"Utter rubbish," almost leaping from her table for the nickelodeon. And though taller than Zan Yu, the Equalist easily glared down some beaming, jiggling girl that was also on her way to the jukebox. Zan Yu shoved a few coins down the throat of the machine and hunted for something different. Something less foreign. Something speedier. Something energetic. And she slapped her hand down on the machine when she found one choice after another after another.

"Yes," shuddering in gratification, "this!"

Immediately, slumped heads and shoulders began to lift. The dancers' swaying was replaced with bouncing. The pool tables thrummed with tapping feet and patting hands. She couldn't even help stop her own shoulders from dancing to the music as well, her smile radiant and head swaying at the sound of the tsungi horn solo. Clad in grey and purple, one man dancing raised his mug to her in salute and almost spilled it on the floor. In a better mood, the dance floor was starting to become crowded. Patrons began pushing back a few of the tables to make more room and even singles began to slide or stomp dance their way to the floor. And for some of the younger men, their interpretation of dancing was to pretend they driving erratically. Zan Yu kept her eye on those. Perhaps they were the ones she was seeking.

[Zan Yu]

Almost off their hinges. Again. The doors exploded open.

Muffled to the streets outside, the joint's music blasted forward to tackle them. And a waterfall of bodies flowed down the steps. Arms crooked around shoulders. Arms wrapped around waists.

"BHAM! BHAM! BHAM! BHAM!" To the music they high-kicked then shuffled then high-kicked again their way down the stairs. All singing but not all sober. "Dun dun dudun dunnnn!"

Zan Yu followed behind the crowd at a distance. Her skin tingling and head swimming in a sober buzz. Her hips swaying and thighs twisting with the music.

"Free to do whatever! Now more than ever!" The singer's voice followed after her. The little dancehall's windows began to open and heads peeped out and jostled one another. The jukebox was dragged in front of the door and turned to the streets. "But I gotta stick with that gang of mine!"

The song's chorus was drowned out instead replaced by the hoots and hollers and yells and whistles of the revelers. The new chorus was further added to by engine motors revving and tires screeching as machines began lining up outside the door and jockeying for position. Zan Yu leisured hustled to her own machine. Her cafe racer-style motorcycle. And with a grin as she patted it, Zan Yu knew she and it were in for a very good nightcap.

"FISHBONES man! I say gimme some Fishbones!" After the music died down, one Water Tribe looking man, stood in his hotrod with one white boot atop the passenger side door yelled over the auto engines.

An extremely bright red racer next to him tried to drown him out with the sound of its engine. The passenger stuck out of the car window up to his own shoulders and screamed. "HOT SAUCE FROM HOME fool!"

"No. Play sumthin by Muddy Lu," a green clad woman poked from around a window in the dance hall.

At the jukebox, one of the hall's rougher looking employees, a bouncer tried to calm the crowd down. On her motorcycle, Zan Yu weaved her way between the cars towards the front of the starting line, pulling up near at least one other motorcycles in this race and close to the dance hall door as possible. Having steered tonight's events to this record-race, a race from the building and back before the end of the song, she was more than ready for the signal and knew just what she wanted played. Zan Yu smoothed her hands across the low slung handlebars of her machine, straddled it tightly as she tucked against it and raised her tail skywards.

She hooked the attention of the bouncer at the jukebox as expected. As well as a fair share of calls and engine revving by the racers behind her.

"And whut bout you girl?" The snaggled toothed bouncer showed off by trying to nonchalantly fold his muscled arms and lean against the jukebox.

"Ride on," the answer drove forth without a pause.

The bouncer nodded and raised a coin into the air from his pocket. "RIDE ON JO-LING it is!" He bellowed.

[Yahto]

The moon shone pretty brightly that night, and Yahto was more than grateful. The corner nearest to his apartment was always so poorly-lit compared to most others, and he always worried that something would sideline him unexpectedly and send him crashing into the pavement. Nights like these were the best when he felt like cooling his head, though.

It wasn’t like he had anything better to do anyway, as he had the next two nights off and this time, Hyojin had decided to turn in early for some reason. The latter case, though, had instigated Yahto’s nighttime ride. Yahto still wasn’t sure what he said that brought Hyojin to bid him goodnight and sign off the CB radio so suddenly, but he didn’t like it. Really, he felt like the only thing to distract him from the (perhaps irrational) idea that he may never speak to Hyojin again was hitting the streets. However long he needed to drive, to feel the wind in his face, and hear the roar of his motor…it was enough to remind him that the world wasn’t ending.

Thus, not a half hour later, Yahto was still driving. As he turned yet another remarkable corner in a Dragon Flats neighborhood, though, it became clearer that the roar of motors was outnumbering his own. Ahead of him there seemed to be some kind of ruckus outside a nearby building. Yahto immediately assumed the worse, but curiosity told him to advance anyway.

Who could blame him? Dragon Flats was anything but boring most of the time.

He slowed, though he allowed himself a wide enough margin to turn around and make a quick getaway, if need be. Was he the slightest bit concerned? Absolutely, but he was also pretty excited by what it might, and excitement for Yahto wasn’t exactly something he could simply turn off. Caution wasn’t really his style anyway.

Once he was near enough to make out anything clear in the cavalcade of voices, he realized there was probably a lot less danger to the situation than his overactive imagination initially led him to believe. It seemed like every motor vehicle enthusiast was gathered outside the building—a bar, as he noticed—and ready to do…something. A race, maybe?

There was certainly one way to find out, he thought as he pulled up to a woman dressed in a rather strange uniform, who was mounted on a motorcycle shaped similarly to his own. Yahto lifted the lenses of his goggles up to his forehead, exposing his eyes and a small curl of hair that he inadvertently left hanging between them—the joys of hastily putting on a helmet? Instead of dealing with the stray lock, he called out to the woman—though he did wait until the burly man with the jukebox triumphantly announced that ‘Ride On, Jo-Ling’ song, for whatever reason. “Hey you!” he said, leaving far too much ambiguity as to who he actually wanted to address. “Taking any more challengers here?”

[Zan Yu]

Amid catcalls and whistles one of the skirted waitresses bounced her way down the steps and into the middle of the street, dirty apron waving in the air as a racing flag.

Primed and ready, Zan Yu's checkered gloves excitedly gripped the handlebars of her cafe racer like an overeager teen, loving the ecstatic rush of blood with every rev or her machine.

Suddenly, she found a figure pulling up along her periphery. Hearing it before fully viewing, it sounded like another motorcycle. Perhaps someone with the same idea of starting out in front so as not to deal with maneuvering around the cars. "Hm." Acknowledging the machine's presence once it finally rolled next to her then gave it a perplexed from underneath her bucket helmet upon trying to decipher its design. A racer like hers. And from the looks of it, customized... or repaired? Maybe it was just that it was night and the lack proper lighting in the neighborhood, but it was hard to fully conclude what sort of build this rider's machine was, or its color scheme.

Either way, Zan Yu decided, it should be treated as any real custom job racer. Though, not one as well customized as her mean machine of course.

“Hey you!” The machine's rider called, finally making Zan Yu acknowledge him. He seemed rather huge at first glance or maybe it was the poor lighting that made his build look like a platypus-bear atop a tricycle. To Zan Yu, he looked more cute than handsome, with the curl between his eyes she felt gave him more of a momma's boy appearance but was no less charming, but he looked Water Tribe-ish.

“Taking any more challengers here?” He said, causing her ears to prick up even further.

Zan Yu gave him a grin that became even more feral as the music began to trickle in. "Yeah!" She yelled in reply. "Lessee how much my exhaust ya all can swallow," she told him as an electric pipa began to rev up the song.

Holding the apron up high, the waitress threw down her arm, starting a race that would run a circuit around the neighborhood and back to the hall by the time the song ends.

Zan Yu flattened herself against her motorcycle, her thighs clasping around its frame and began to pull off the invisible starting line. "Open wide!"

[Yahto]

Yep, it was a race. Yahto was glad he didn’t have to idle for long either, cuz otherwise the vibration of his motorcycle would probably start making his jacket ride up on his stomach, and he hated that. It would have been nice to afford a jacket that fit properly, but that was wind of another season. Right now he couldn’t waste time worrying, what with this upcoming victory he had to deal with.

Of course he was going to win. Isn’t it always good to approach a challenge with confidence? Naturally, there was quite a fuzzy line between ‘confidence’ and ‘arrogance’ in Yahto’s mind…but again, that was unimportant.

While the image of eating a vehicle’s exhaust was nothing too pleasant, it wasn’t something Yahto couldn’t immediately shake from his mind to accommodate for something better. Gripping the body of his motorcycle between his thighs, he reached up to slide down his goggles as they were before. Leaning forward, he was ready to go.

When the cue was given to go, he heard the woman throw in a finishing touch to her taunt. Zooming off from the starting point, Yahto turned and shouted to his opponent over the roar of engines. “Sorry, don’t got room!” He accelerated with all his might. “Lemme know how it tastes!” Whether she heard him or not, she could probably tell it was vaguely insulting. Such was the way of the road.

[Zan Yu]

“Sorry, don’t got room!” The other motorcyclist responded as the race began. Underneath the hurricane roar of engines

There was also something added that could have sounded like, “Lemme know how it tastes!” drowned out over the united excitement from the screaming crowd, whooping the drivers and rumbling machines all at once.

Didn't matter. "Cheeky sunnabich," she smirked under her goggles. There was still a retort from him buried under the noise. Whether she heard him right or not, that last bit had to be a reply to her challenge. Such was the way of the road.

With both of them having started at the front, it was doubtless they would take lead of the pack. The cars behind them would just have to play catch up meanwhile. But for now they wouldn't warrant Zan Yu a glance to her motorcycle's side mirrors, far much less a look behind her. She expected them to be too busy jockeying for positioning among themselves in the two-way, two-lane street to provide a challenge just yet.

For now this man racing beside her would claim of her attention. Or at least, his similar style machine neck and neck to hers that was trying to pull ahead.

[Yahto]

Yahto bemoaned the fact that this woman was probably half his size, because it gave her so many advantages over him. Her motorcycle was much less encumbered by weight, so among other things, she had speed and mobility on her side. This was even ignoring how her vehicle was in much, much better shape. Was that any reason for Yahto to psyche himself out of doing his best, though? He had to mentally remind himself how he was most likely to win this race.

Having presumably missed any declaration of the rules, Yahto was unaware of how ‘dirty’ things could possibly get. Ramming into the other bike was probably a good way for him to get ahead, since sidelining this other racer was akin to her getting hit by a torpedo. Was he entirely comfortable doing that, though? There were so many cars behind them that she could risk even worse injuries, though she was probably aware of those risks when she decided to hit the road. There was the whole issue of him trying to hit a woman, too.

However, this was a good opportunity for a different tactic. Physically forcing her off the track was one thing, but it could be just as effective to hint that he was going to do that. Intimidating the other racer might be pretty easy. He knew this because he was a torpedo.

As he quickly veered the Yahtocycle closer to hers, he kept peering over, alternating his view between the woman and the road. Once in a while, he would flash her a rather cruel smirk. He kept his eye out for any suggestion that she might be falling for his ploy.

[Zan Yu]

"Well aren't you a real charmer, ya oversized palooka!" Was the kindest reply Zan Yu for the racer's gentle suggestion.

Her "kindest" reply would have actually been a swift kick to the racer's motorcylce--but look at him! In her eyes it looked like a platypus-bear riding a trike was racing her. Even a good, stout kick would have knocked her over instead.

Just hold out till the next intersection girl, telling herself as Yahto continued to gently encourage to slow down or get off the street. And that smirk of his--Ihateyurface!--snarling back at Yahto under her goggles. If it probably wouldn't have bust her hand, she'd give that smile of his a good backhand.

Lenient as he was being, that man still carried enough weight to bounce her aside even with a light bump.

"Yeah!" She screamed as they neared the end of the second block. With the light in their favor she turned to Yahto, pressed a fingertip to one nostril, blew out the other, then pulled away.

"Make way! Make way!" Diving her motorcycle into the intersection, cutting into the perpendicular street, nearly clipping a pedestrian, and finally ramping onto the sidewalk to continue the race.

Didn't even have to slow down, pleased with herself for a moment. Briefly, she took into account where the song was--almost half way through--now navigate through the sidewalk till the next intersection. Or time the posts just right...

Through the flicker of lamp posts she could estimate Yahto was more than half a motorcycle ahead of her and inching further. And now the engines of the hotrods were starting to become louder, more distinctive. They were gaining on them.

Zan Yu, smiled to herself. "Just the way I like it!"